Tenth annual event begins May 28

Sure signs of springtime in Cincinnati: The Reds are playing (and
winning), trees in Over-the-Rhine are covered with white blossoms — and
Know Theatre has announced the lineup for the upcoming Cincinnati Fringe
Festival. 2013 is a significant year for the Fringe: It's marking the 10th anniversary of the annual celebration of weird creativity. Last
evening a big crowd gathered at Know Theatre's Jackson Street facility
to hear what's in store for the May 28-June 8 festival.
Eric Vosmeier,
Know's producing artistic director, shared the news that, building on a
decade of success, the Fringe received a
record number of applicants for 2013, with 70 percent of the
applications coming from brand-new producers. That's one of the best
parts of the Fringe, the fact that a new jolt of energy arrives annually
from performers that haven't been seen locally. Sixty-three percent of the 2013
applications were from out of town, including several from
international producers. There will be 35 productions in all, by 17
local groups and 18 from out of town. There will be 19 plays, seven solo
shows, two dance pieces, two musicals, and five multimedia/variety
pieces.
Vosmeier
said that it was no easy task for the Fringe selection committee to
assemble this lineup. The group was made up of theater professionals
from Greater Cincinnati: Heather
Britt, Michael Haney, Dave Levy, Miranda McGee, D. Lynn Meyers and Torie
Wiggins. “The quality of applications continues to get stronger
and larger each year," he said. "I'm so happy to have these amazing leaders of the local
theatre community as a part of our jury, and we're grateful for their time in
deciding the 2013 lineup.”
The official CityBeat
Fringe Kick-Off Party takes place Tuesday, May 28, at Know Theatre. This year's
event will also be a 10th birthday celebration, with many of the
festival's founders in attendance. The evening, which kicks off at 6
p.m., will feature Indie rock group Bethesda and food from a half-dozen
local eateries. The evening (suggested donation: $5) is an opportunity
to meet Fringe artists, staff,
volunteers and other audience members.The
full Fringe schedule will be published in CityBeat's May 15 edition,
but you can get some information at the refreshed website: www.cincyfringe.com.
I'm looking forward to return visits by Wonderheads (from Portland,
Ore., who did some amazing work with masks in last year's Grim and Fischer; their new piece is titled LOON), Four Humors Theatre (from Minneapolis, whose always creative troupe will be staging Lolita: A Three Man Show) and Tanya O'Debra (from New York City; whose Radio Star was a much admired work in 2012; this time she's in a two-person piece, Shut UP, Emily Dickinson).
Performance Gallery, based here in Cincinnati and a regular annual
presence every year is staging Mater Facit, "an absurd look at
motherhood, nationalism, war, sex and sacrifice." Tangled Leaves
Theatrical Collective, another Cincinnati-based group popular with local
audiences, will produce Vortex of the Great Unknown.
Of
course, the real fun of Fringe is being surprised by new material and
performers, and this year's lineup offers plenty of that: Poe and
Mathews: A Misadventure in the Middle of Nowhere (Los Angeles);
Questions of the Heart: Gay Mormons and the Search for Identity
(Bloomington, Ind.); The Bubble and Other Displays of Moral Turpitude
(from Cincinnati-based North American New Opera Workshop); The Elephant
in My Closet (New York City); and a production of Cincinnati playwright
Catie O'Keefe's The Space Between my Head and my Body (by Shark Eat
Muffin Theatre Company). I could go on and on — Know's announcement news
release is 20 pages! Based on a decade of Fringing, I like to say that
the festival is "theater roulette": You never know what's going to
happen when you show up for a performance, and serendipity is the only
predictable element. That's what makes it fun. I don't want to wish away
springtime, but is it May 28 yet?

Fighting for Love: 'Cock' at Know Theatre

Know Theatre has opted for quality rather than quantity in its productions this season. It’s following the highly regarded When the Rain Stops Falling with its second show, Cock by Mike Bartlett, maintaining a similar high level of material and performance

Tonight (Friday) Know Theatre opens a new production of a
work that's bound to launch a lot of conversations. And let's not beat
around the bush: The real title of Mike Bartlett's play is Cock (The Cockfight Play
is the substitute title for media that are afraid to offend). It's a
tense comedy about sexual identity: John takes a break from his longtime
boyfriend and unexpectedly falls in love with a woman. The story is
about how he's caught in a tug-of-war between these two lovers, and the
play's conflict is John's navigation of his sexuality and his selfhood.
It's also told without scenery or props, focusing squarely on the
relationships. According to Know's Eric Vosmeier, "It's a kind of
pansexual love story that's told very simply without all the trappings
of a traditional production." Vosmeier describes this production as "one
of the first victories of Know's new scheduling model." The rights for
Cock just became available; this is only the second American production
of the play that premiered at London's Royal Court Theatre in 2009. The
show runs through May 11. Box office: 513-300-5669
This weekend is the opener for Covedale Center's production of Legally Blonde,
the show that kicked up controversy in a Loveland High School staging
last fall that led to the firing of a dedicated director. I still shake
my head over what could offend anyone about this PG rated piece of
musical theater, but you can check it out and decide for yourself at the
Covedale. It's about a young woman who won't take "no" for an answer
and becomes her own woman in the process — outshining everyone at
Harvard Law School. It's kind of crazy, but a lot of fun. No one will
get fired over this one, I suspect. Box office: 513-241-6550
The Otto M. Budig Theatre at the Carnegie in Covington is in the midst of a run of Jason Robert Brown's Parade.
My schedule and the theater's haven't matched up yet, but I'm eager to
see it — I'm headed there for the Sunday matinee this weekend. Set in
the sweltering intolerance of 1913 Atlanta, Parade is the story of Leo
Frank, a northerner and Jewish factory manager, wrongfully accused of
murdering a 13-year-old girl in his employment. Despite media frenzy and
public outrage, his courageous wife struggles in vain to clear his
name. The show won 1999 Tony Awards for best book and best score. This
is an off-campus production by the musical theater program at UC's
College-Conservatory of Music, and it's been given high marks by the
judging panel from the League of Cincinnati Theatres: for the ensemble,
for musical direction by Steve Goers, for featured actor Noah Ricketts
and for lighting design by Alan Hanson and Wes Richter. It's onstage
through April 21. Box office: 859-957-1940
Untethered Theater is midway through it's run of Jeff Daniels' Apartment 3A,
presented at the Clifton Performance Theatre on Ludlow, a few blocks
east of the Esquire. It's about a once idealistic young woman who has
been disillusioned in just about every aspect of her life. The show is
an exploration of faith and hope in today's world, described as "an
uncynical play about cynics in cynical times." Through April 27.
Tickets: 513-939-0599

This week marks the opening Actors
Theatre of Louisville’s 37th annual Humana Festival of New American
Plays. First up is Meredith McDonough’s The Delling Shore, about
two rival authors and their daughters, a work in which words become
weapons.

Decline and fall

This dense, provocative script is a challenging work, but director
Brian Isaac Phillips has staged it beautifully with nine excellent actors who are
breathtakingly powerful in a complex tale that spans 80 years and four generations of two intricately interwoven families.

A new round of shows comes your way this weekend (while several good ones remain onstage, including Freud's Last Session at Ensemble Theatre and Abigail/1702 at the Cincinnati Playhouse). Here are a few choices that are just opening:
Know Theatre is finally getting around to its first full-fledged production of the season, Andrew Bovell's award-winning drama, When the Rain Stops Falling. (The playwright's Speaking in Tongues was
a much admired production at the Cincinnati Playhouse a year ago.) An
intricate fabric of overlapping connections, Bovell's 2010 script moves
seamlessly through time and across continents between the years of 1959
and 2039. In a world where the rain rarely stops falling, four
generations of a family search for truth and hope to mend broken
connections. What they discover is the impossibility of escaping the
past. The production should be all the more interesting since it's being
directed by Cincinnati Shakespeare Company's Brian Isaac Phillips and
features a cast of nine excellent actors, four of whom are CSC regulars.
It will be onstage through March 16. Box office: 513-300-5669.
To see another award winner, you need to head up I-75 to
Dayton where the Human Race Theatre Company is offering the regional
premiere of Eric Simonson's bio-play, Lombardi. Set in
1965, it's a portrait of the legendary coach of the Green Bay Packers
through the eyes of a young reporter assigned to follow the sports icon,
a man full of passion and drive without equal. The show had a recent
run on Broadway, and I expect it will attract an audience not normally
drawn to the theater. Through Feb. 24. Box office: 937-228-6830
Falcon Theater, which presents its shows in the tiny
Monmouth Theatre in Newport, is staging the Tony Award and Pulitzer
Prize-winning play Doubt, a success on Broadway, at the
Cincinnati Playhouse, and on movie screens. It's the provocative story
of a starchy nun who thinks it's possible that a priest has abused one
of her students. Although she's not sure, her accusations have dire
ramifications. Through Feb. 23. Box office: 513-479-6783
Finally, a blast from the past at UC's College-Conservatory of Music: William Saroyan's The Time of Your Life. Set
in October 1939 in a run-down waterfront dive bar on the docks of San
Francisco, the script is full of colorful, eccentric characters and
portrays the love and follies of human nature. It's being staged by
veteran faculty member Diane Kvapil with a cast of 29. This production
has a short run (one weekend, wrapping up with a performance in Patricia
Corbett Theatre on Sunday at 2 p.m.) Box office: 513-556-4183

As I wrote in my column in the current issue of CityBeat, there's a lot of good holiday theater available on Cincinnati stages right now. The Playhouse's production of A Christmas Carol,
now in its 22nd year, is best in class — a well-told traditional tale
with some of the best professional actors in town onstage, from Bruce
Cromer as Scrooge and Dale Hodges as the Ghost of Christmas past. There
are a few new faces, too, playing the Cratchits. And speaking of new
faces, I feel comfortable recommending New Edgecliff Theatre's one-woman
show, The 12 Dates of Christmas, which is being engagingly performed by Annie Kalahurka. It's paired with David Sedaris's The Santaland Diaries,
which feels a little shopworn to me, but you can catch the double-bill
downtown at the Arnonff's Fifth Third Bank Theater — and maybe go for
drinks at Arnold's before or after the show.
If you're looking for something kind of different, try The Naughty List (review here),
a holiday-themed improv show (presented in Arnold's courtyard on
Sunday, Monday and Tuesday evenings) by Know Theatre. Five quick-witted
comics who constitute OTR Improv are doing routines that use audience
suggestions (and occasional audience participants) for nearly two hours
of entertainment. It's a different show every night.
Have kids you want to take to the theater and give them a
taste of what fun it can be? Two good bets are Ensemble Theatre
Cincinnati for one of its musical fairytales with a moral (this year the
show is a colorful, cartoonish rendition of Alice in Wonderland) and Covedale Center, where Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella
is singing and dancing its way through another familiar story the kids
will know. The prince is handsome, Cinderella is sweet and the nasty
Stepmother is played by a guy.
As far as familiar stories go, you've probably seen Frank Capra's classic holiday film It's a Wonderful Life
a few times during the holidays. But I bet you haven't experienced in
the unique way that Falcon Theater offers it up at Newport's Monmouth
Theatre: The script frames the story as an old-time radio drama, and you
get to watch behind-the-scenes as a handful of actors play all the
roles and a few others create the necessary sound effects. It opens
this weekend and runs for a week. I haven't seen this year's edition,
but I've enjoyed past incarnations, and I suspect this one will be
entertaining as well.
Happy holidays!

It’s time for mistletoe and holly, when
theaters entice folks in search of holiday cheer (and occasional
parodies thereof) to celebrate the season. Many theaters need December
ticket revenues to present shows onstage for the rest of the year.

Collaboration is the byword for many
arts organizations today, especially theaters where financial support is
tough to obtain and ticket revenues are seldom enough to support the
cost of productions. By working together, economies can be achieved and,
in some cases, multiple constituencies can be activated.

You have no excuse for complaining that there's not enough
theater in the days ahead. In fact, you'll have a hard time fitting it
all in.
Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati's regional premiere of
Mrs. Mannerly
opened a few days ago: It's a comedy about growing up in small-town
Ohio under the watchful (perhaps oppressive) eye of a strict etiquette
teacher. Jeffrey Hatcher's play (largely based on his own experience in
1967) features one of Cincinnati's best actresses, Dale Hodges, in the
title role. And the production has been staged by Ed Stern, recently
retired after 20 years as producing artistic director at the Cincinnati
Playhouse. Box Office: 513-421-3555.
Cincinnati Shakespeare is producing Shakespeare's romantic tragedy
Romeo & Juliet, featuring a pair of actors — Sara Clark and Ian Bond — who had great chemistry in recent productions of Pride & Prejudice and Sense & Sensibility.
They will bring new life a familiar work, I'm sure. The production
opens Friday; bear in mind that Cincy Shakes has been selling out its
productions this season, so catching this one before it catches on with
the larger audience might be a good idea. Box Office: 513-381-2273 x1.
For entertainment of an entirely different stripe, I suggest you check out
The Beggar's Carnivale
on Friday and Saturday evenings (9 p.m.) at Know Theatre. This variety
show has been described as "Cirque du Soleil on a whiskey bender." It
includes elements of traiditonal circus arts, gypsy folk and Rock &
Roll. You'll witness a fast-paced spectacle with several acts linked by
interludes in the style of silent film. There's live music, too, by
their house band The Royal We and the Carnivale's personal DJ. Sounds
like an evening of unusual entertainment. Box Office: 513-300-5669.
For the stay-at-homes, you might sample
Lost in Yonkers on
WVXU's broadcast of L.A. Theatre Works, Saturday evening at 8 p.m. on
FM 91.7. This great nostalgic play by Neil Simon is part of an
autobiographical trilogy; the Cincinnati Playhouse is producing Brighton Beach Memoirs, another from this set, a few weeks from now. On Sunday evening at 8 p.m. WVXU will air The Moth,
a collection of monologues by everyday people, sharing anecdotes of
things that actually happened to them. It's the inspiration for our
local company True Theatre, which opens its third season on Monday
evening (7:30 p.m.) with trueLearning at Know Theatre.
Finally, to keep you occupied next week, CCM Drama is offering a week of
free, unticketed readings of gay-themed plays. On Monday it's Larry
Kramer's
The Normal Heart (1985); Tuesday and Wednesday offer Tony Kushner's 1993 award-winning Angels in America, Part 1: Millennium Approaches and Part 2: Perestroika. Thursday evening it's Stephen Karam's Sons of the Prophet
(2011). All readings are at 7 p.m. in the Corbett Center's Room 4755 at
the University of Cincinnati. On Friday evening, Dr. Richard Coons will
moderate a conversation about "Storytellers, History Makers and
Revolutionaries: The LGBT Story." A clinical psychologist, Coons is a
CCM Drama grad; in 1998 and 1999 he played the central role of Prior
Walter in CCM's local premiere of Kushner's Angels in America. (Also free, this event will be in Patricia Corbett Theatre on the UC campus.)